"JumpRoaCH is Kind Of Cute, Kind Of Creepy"

JumpRoaCH is Kind Of Cute, Kind Of Creepy Gerrit Coetzee 17 hours ago Categories: robots hacks Tags: berkeley , biorobotics , insect , jumping , project , punching arm , research , roach , robot , SNU , university There’s a theory that the fear of scurrying things is genetic. Likewise, a similar theory arose about the tendency for humans to find helpless things cute. After all, our useless babies do best in a pest free environment. This all could explain why we found this robotic roach to be both a little cute and a little creepy. The university sponsored project, JumpRoaCH, is a collaboration between South Korea’s SNU Biorobotics Lab and Berkeley’s Biomimetic Millisystems Lab . Imitating insects has been a popular avenue for robotic research , and often results in very interesting experiments. This robot looks like a ladybug going through its rebellious teen phase. It run...